Book Review: The Bloody Reign of Slayer
September 15 2008 at 07:10:58 AM  Joel McIver (Justice For All: The Truth about Metallica) presents his extensive, although far from exhaustive look at "the heaviest band on the planet." While not an official biography (for reasons discussed in the author's preface) Joel McIver's The Bloody Reign of Slayer puts forth a wealth of information, some from previously unheard from sources, and much that was available to the public beforehand to re-create the unlikely rise and padded fall of vocalist Tom Araya, guitarists Jeff Hanneman, Kerry King and drummer Dave Lombardo: Colloquially known as Fucking Slayer! Including portions of some 60 original interviews with the band and their associates throughout the years, McIver has done fantastic research overall. It's not the be-all-end-all book many were expecting, but a generally lucid tome suitable for both diehards and wider audiences. Granted, many will not care to read Ice-T, Rob Flynn - or for that matter, even Kerry King, comment at length, but with members of up to 50 different bands interviewed beforehand, McIver wisely peppers his texts with quotes from Lemmy, Gene Hoglan, Steve Asheim (Deicide), Jeff Becerra (Possessed), Chris Reifert (Autopsy) the members of Darkthrone, Emperor and Cannibal Corpse's Alex Webster – representing those areas where Slayer's influence is most distinctly heard and felt. One downside, however, is that many of the remarks are actually trivial (Is there a blast beat in "Supremist" or not?) and few of the other musicians (Including Rob Halford, David Vincent, Glen Benton and Atilla Csihar) are quoted directly. Aside from detailing the band's origins and charting their rise over the past two decades from lunch-time entertainment to arena filling powerhouse, the main thrust of the book is McIver's attempt to undue many misconceptions associated with the band, especially as these relate to the twin evils of Satanism and Nazism. This is often and most easily done by pointing to the plain fact of the member's ethnicities, backgrounds and by highlighting the irreverent silliness of the group off stage. Track-by-track commentaries on each album are interspersed with summaries of the tours and controversies that followed (lots of back-story on Megadeth's Dave Mustaine, the relationship between King and Darrel Abott and the Pahler lawsuit/murder trial). Consequently, McIver is at his most difficult to read here, not so much due to his writing style (although I lost count of the number of times "malevolence" appeared in the text) but because of his persistent nit picking ("Die By The Sword" and "Captor of Sin" sound "dated" or "pedestrian." "Mandatory Suicide" is "boring" etc.) and apparent leaning toward the faster-is-better school of criticism. On the other hand, his approach is consistent and he keeps a professional distance from the recordings that is to be applauded. In other areas, however, it's simply not enough to sit down and review the material at hand. Several times McIver falls short of providing important details while wading into Slayer's thought process beyond the music itself. The book is actually less humanizing in some respects, in that we get less opinion and personal insight into the members' politics and more mantras about how the band merely reflects the attitudes of our time. No instance of this is more frustrating than in the chapter covering South of Heaven, one of the most divisive and perhaps most interesting album behind the scenes- with Tom Araya writing an overwhelming majority of the lyrics - that the band ever recorded. Particularly, in discussing the album's second track, "Silent Scream," McIver raises the question of how large a role the singer/songwriter's weirdly devout Catholicism played in penning the lyrics and whether or not the song is meant to be anti-abortion in nature or a documentary type analysis in the vein of "Angel of Death" and other controversial tracks. Because Araya has never spoken about the song previously in interviews, his reasoning is still open to speculation. However, McIver also neglects to mention - or is unaware - of the likelyhood that the song was influenced by an infamous 1984 anti-abortion film of the same name, which purports to show, through ultrasound images, the inaudible scream emitted from a fetus during a suction abortion procedure. The same film was apparently granted a special screening at the White House by President Reagan. A similar problem occurs later when chronicling the group's 2001 effort, God Hates Us All and its follow-up, Christ Illusion. While Slayer's lyrics have always been more cultural rather than political fusillades - with notable transgressions including assaults on religion and government and the occasional flirt with hallowed atrocities such as The Holocaust - on the subject of war and conflict the members appear to be fairly in line with the majority of Americans' "support the troops" mentality. Partly because of this the band has enjoyed enthusiastic, though hardly surprising support from many fans serving in the United States military. Given the religious overtones involved on both sides of the conflict and the pertinent lyrics to songs from Christ Illusion (where war is specifically and negatively associated with Christianity), the topic opens up to more questions – yet posed – about the members' political stance. It's entirely possible that McIver would have delved into such a discussion had he been given the chance. And I don't mean to criticize him for not speculating further when no reply is directly forthcoming, but it's in this lack of inquiry and direct questioning that the book begins to feel quite a bit lighter than it should as the chapters wear on. Without a doubt the richest and most interesting portions of the book are those dealing first with the formation of the group (everything about the name plus a detailed account of the recording of Show No Mercy from Brian Slagel) and later with the departure and re-entrance of Dave Lombardo back into the fold twice within the space of 10 years. From the heated arguments, badmouthing and polite negotiations that ensued, the book brings out all the tension and drama that occurred both on, and off the road. And we get varied perspectives as to whether or not the rest of the band were simply being selfish assholes or if the man widely regarded as one of the most accomplished drummers in all of rock, currently playing in the most notorious band in all of Metal is, as one observer puts it, "terrified of his wife." It could be said graciously that the rest of the book suffers from the fact that Slayer aren’t as completely screwed up as many are led to believe. People expecting a lot of dirt to be dished out will be the most disappointed as the years of heavy drug use (Coke and Meth, if you’re interested) and more routine alcohol binging are glossed over rather quickly while McIver similarly respects the privacy of certain issues un-related to the creative process. Likely to raise a few a eyebrows, however, is the thorny issue of portraying the band as having “matured” greatly in their middle-age, when in the fact the same Big Dumb Kid is now steering the ship. Contains 24 pages of B&W photos with a forward by the brat-thrashers of Municipal Waste and covered with a beautiful dust jacket, lightly embossed with a stunning, though delicate silver finish. [Todd DePalma]
type: reviews
keywords:
black metal,
death metal,
thrash metal,
speed metal,
slayer,
jerseys,
leather,
books,
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I have not read the book but sadly it seems the only questions of interest I would ever have for Slayer have remained unasked. As I am not a Slayer fan specifically then I'll have to pass this up. What about the book on the making of Reign in Blood? I have read online that it's even lighter than this one.
Yeah, you can check out the full review in the "books" section. Shares most of the same failings in that many of the people interviewed have little to say or aren't even IN metal bands. However, it does contain some pretty cool stuff about the working relationship between the band and Rubin and also Hanneman's writing process, some original ideas he had for the songs, concepts etc.
I think one of the problems is that, on top of King being the spokesperson for the group, the rest of the band don't seem like the most introspective group of people and are pretty reserved - even among themselves. There's a hint of this in the RiB book where King admits he didn't even know Hanneman's older sister was dead until the author brought it up.
Then what fascinates me (to the point where I might endeavor to read the book) is then is how apparently a bunch of introverts (and one somewhat obnoxious extrovert, granted) that may or may not be very well acquainted have collaborated for 25 years on writing music that has (?) a singular vision. It reminds me of the Metallica debacle with 'Some Kind of Monster' where it was made plain that nobody in the band could ever speak their minds in fear of upsetting the others so a pretty emotionally taxing facade was adopted.
I wonder how it is to be shut in in Slayer. Having to sing about nuclear holocaust every every other night when you don't even know the deeper feelings of the other people in the group on this, or any other subject. Given the oldschool pictures with blood and crosses show a pretty tight-knit group of children, but people change! Emotional relationships need upkeep!
Then there are bands like say, The Chasm where one member finishes the sentences of the other in interviews and you can almost picture the long nights with beers they spend trying to explain themselves to one another and arriving to a band vision. That's closer to my romantic ideal of how a HM band should be, even if it is a pretty homosexual one! I take that over my mental image of Slayer being one part obnoxious republican muscle-man redneck with a bad case of Rob Flynn disease, one part unsung songwriter hero (seriously, why does nobody talk about how Hanneman pretty much does the hard work in this band?), one reserved catholic that doesn't even know what he's doing in the band and apparently... one part pussy-whipped superdrummer. Oh man, Slayer.